These are sacred days. This time last year I witnessed the last surviving days of my father. The whole world outside his hospital window continued to go on but I existed in a slow motion time. Simply counting out the hours and measuring his breaths.

The first night I spent with him I was alone. I came equipped with a journal, soft drink, some snacks,  a hastily purchased change of clothes,  and the book, Shantaram, recommended to me by my husband’s cousin. All my necessities needed for this sojourn.

That night I never slept. My goal was to keep Dad alive until morning and when one has that goal, a restful sleep is not an option. So after telling my Dad several times to breathe, I got out of my makeshift bed.  I turned on the television to a nature show, held my Dad’s hand, and started reading aloud from my book.

It was all I could think of to do.  My worst fear was that my Dad was terrified and I longed for him to be at peace. Reading aloud and holding his hand, felt to me like a strong guidance and reassurance for him. I was there, things were okay, and I wasn’t going anywhere. Any updates hospital staff brought into his room were quickly silenced.  All news was to be received outside his room and out of his earshot.

I remember all I could do in those slow moments was keep the room organized.  Trash and disorder gave me purpose. I had bedkeeping tasks. I cleaned up the used paper coffee cups, straightened up the flowers, set used food trays out for the hospital staff to take, swabbed my Dad’s mouth with ice water as he could no longer take in any food or liquids.  These quiet little routines that kept the place neat and tidy, and most importantly functional.  This was a hospice room and to me a place of holiness, and with that holiness came those necessary rituals.

I felt like the room was almost a living presence meant to see my Dad through his final days.  It was marked apart from the others by a flower card placed on the door.  A signal to staff and knowledgeable families that this room was to be respected.  Entrance here required a kind, soft voice, and gentle hands.  Here the hope of survival was gone and the quiet acquiesence of impendeding death remained.

The only real intrusion to this acceptance of death was the blood pressure machine that entered my Dad’s room every few hours or so.  After several times, I told the staff enough.  No more machines.  No more tracking of just how quickly his death was approaching. It was like a visible tangible countdown. One that seemed a direct violation of the natural process of dying. It felt like a shove, a hurry up and say what you need to say, kind of thing. It would tear my mom apart each time that benign little white machine was rolled in. When the pressure cuff squeezed my Dad’s arm and continually found a lower and lower pressure reading.

On the day of his death, two days later, I had gone home to sleep for a few hours. I had spent two sleepless nights by my Dad’s bedside and it was time to go home.  I knew instinctively that that would be the last time I would see him alive, and I felt that he would not want me to see him die.

I woke up that afternoon with the weight of an elephant on my chest. My inner workings had seemed to build up a wall of firm resolve all on their own. No doubt intended to give my face and movements the appearance of placid calm, confidence and surety. Up to that moment only my stomach had suffered. I could barely take in any food and coffee burned me like acid. Now my body was alerting me to the rest of my pains. I was exhausted. My muscles, the overtight screws that held up my wall, ached.  My duty of keeping watch over my Dad during those nights and days, making sure that death would enter with comfort rather than fear, was now over, and it was time for me to recover.

At 4:15pm on June 29, 2016 my Dad passed. A time that made us smile. 415 was a law enforcement code for “disturbance” and a term my Dad loved to use in a joking matter.  He passed away surrounded by one of best friends and his brother. My mom had left to go get something to eat.  The only time she left his side that day.  He passed away the way he wanted to, I think. I look back on that time and hope I made those last few days for him somewhat tolerable. It was a difficult time but a sacred one. My Dad knew he was well loved my so many.  I miss him daily but feel the light of his love still.